Trigger warning: discussions of rape, assault, and death (but also life and transformation!)
…Here’s this beautiful cicada in its moment of transformation. So visceral and beautiful, a delicate jewel of a creature unraveling. Both soft and vibrant, holding duality, emerging from this dry leaf exoskeleton into her full colors, her life with flight.
But this is also her most vulnerable point, this moment of formation, the unfurling of her wings, halted forever by the trauma of a vicious and brutal attack. Not malicious, just the nature of the wasp…
PRELUDE
This year has been challenging. Grief cracked open my heart, and with so much responsibility on my plate, this crack remained open, gaping, bleeding, driving further into the core of me, splintering along the way, fissures veining into every part of me. Each loss, so devastating and yet so beautiful.
And the losses amassed, these bursts of intense beauty and the crippling nature of breaking further and further. True exhaustion, the exhaustion of all my natural resources, depletion, painful emptiness. Even now, I feel the empty space where my dog rested his head, nestled into the crook of my neck and pressing into my left shoulder. I hear my grandmother’s words in her last days, this anachronistic clarity, knowing I had been with her this whole time, thanking me for the songs I sang to her, letting me know they carry great medicine. And I am still wavering in the sense of being lost in this world after closing my business of over a decade, without the career I had day in and day out for over a third of my life.
And finally, all of this was pointing toward moving across an ocean. Everything aligned within the space of time, and I prepared so diligently to leave my place of birth, travel across an ocean, and start a new chapter of this life in a place where I can easily find health. Where I can eat without fear of intense bodily reaction, where I can step through realms while remaining here, messages flowing freely. And in a perplexing twist of fate, my visa request was denied for a reason I cannot amend, I am supposed to provide proof of income in a country without the legal right to work in said country.
Getting this answer was indeed a great relief. Waiting for the answer paralyzed me. And there is also here a heavy disappointment which fell into the abyss of grief, and oozed into every fissure. And yet, a message I did not anticipate came through the thick liquid and reached me. This is the story of receiving that message.
PART ONE
Until recently, I hadn’t thought much about cicadas. I had heard their hum, of course, and seen their discarded exoskeletons still clinging to brick walls, but they went fairly unnoticed in my life. Then, one day, I had no choice in the matter.
I stopped by the tattoo shop shortly before leaving town so I could see Rachel and the crew again, a delightful time laughing and crying from so much laughing. I was thinking of leaving when the newest member of the team pointed out a cicada bumbling along the sidewalk. This I had to see. Something new, something fascinating.
I stepped out the door to watch this little creature making its way toward the brick wall, each tiny step shaking loose its grey-brown shell, the minuscule animal seeming to be in such a hurry to get there before time was up. It reached the wall, but every time it tried to grip the white flashing it fell upon its back, another struggle to right itself and try again. So I grabbed a leaf. Within a few seconds I had the cicada just above the flashing where it was able to grip the porous brick, and it set off on its final journey in this form.
I went back inside and chatted some more, laughed a lot more, and finally decided it was actually time to go. I stepped out the door and checked for the cicada, and there she was, this vibrant pale green baby with lilac purple eyes, clear liquid bubbling around her, hanging out of this dry leaf of an exoskeleton. She was so cute, had strikingly beautiful colors, and it was all so visceral.
And then, suddenly, a wasp tears down upon her, seemingly drinking the fluid bubbling out of her. As quickly as it came, it flew away, leaving the cicada hanging there. One side, this tiny budding wing, the other, just this bubbling fluid. I stood in shock, looking at her tiny body, hand over my mouth.
And then the wasp was back, this time so aggressive, it nearly broke my heart. And the cicada struggled against the attack, tiny legs flicking at the attacker in vain, until it fell from its pendulous home to the ground.
I scooped it up with a leaf and gently placed it on a lilac bush, finally safe, but malformed, likely to die.
I read later that when a cicada is emerging from its exoskeleton, it is at its most vulnerable, and open to wasp attacks. If this occurs, the trauma usually prevents its wings from forming, altering the course of its already short life.
This, just a few days after finding a newborn bunny on a sidewalk near my home, barely alive after an attack by something that punctured its flesh, also unlikely to survive, its slain sibling already visited by flies in a nearby garden bed. I went to sing to this baby, bald and eyes still shut, to hold space for it while it transitioned to death. I gave it Reiki and wove a tapestry of sound around its tiny body. And it began to show more and more life. So I cleaned away the dried blood and began calling places to see if they could take it in, their best options this late in the evening boiling down to euthanasia. So I took the baby home with me, in a soft makeshift bed in a box, fed it goat’s milk from a dropper, and let it rest through the long night atop a hot water bottle. It survived the night, and I was able to take it to a wildlife center where they reminded me it would most likely still perish.
I do not know the fate of either animal.
<><><>
I arrived in France, feeling unusually shy and nervous, vulnerable in a city I did not yet know. My boldness evaded me, and I spent most of my time inside for two days before moving on to my next destination, a hotel in a very tranquil setting, where I would go through my certification course for tattooing in France. Jet lag swirled into the anxiety of the lessons, learning the technical language required to be tested on this knowledge in just three days time. And by the end of it, the sleepless nights and hours of studying, I found myself taken down ever so slightly by a budding cold, ready to fall into a bed and nurture myself out of impending sickness. On to my next destination.
<><><>
Rest.
And cicadas.
Walking through narrow streets, I begin noticing repetitive decor, at many a front door, in shop windows, painted on walls, cicadas everywhere, varying in size, and ubiquitous.
This surely means something, right? But what? For the first time in my life I see a cicada emerge, I see this cicada attacked, and now cicadas grace nearly every portal in sight. But that’s not my main concern right now. The occasional sneeze is telling me to take care of my body, keep a cold at bay.
I immediately think of my grandma Irene, a nurse for 40 years, who always recommended hot salt water rinses at the start of a cold. So here we go. One hot salt water rinse later and I feel amazing. But I know to rest, to give my body nourishment, and continue with salt rinses.
I rest in Cassis and notice the sounds. My jet lag is slowly dissipating, tea and salt water rinses convince me they’re unnecessary, yet I continue with the treatment. Heal and restore, rest and mend. A church bell rings on the half hour, occasionally a church bell rings the time of day, but there doesn’t seem to be consistency. Time swirls all around, out of order, chaotic in the transition.
And the cicada grows stronger in my mind. Spirit often brings me messages, but this one is evading me. Lost in this new flow, focused on physical health to defeat a cold before it even sets in, and the cicada, the creature I saw before I left, everpresent in my mind, the decor physically and visibly all around me. What did it mean to see this cicada, what does it mean to see so many now?
As it turns out, the cicada is a symbol of this region where I want to move, and has been since the 1800’s. It is a symbol of good fortune and transformation, and it’s common to hang one by a front door for good luck, in a shop window for the same reason. But the message still hasn’t clicked, and my time here is coming to an end. I can still feel a twinge of internal battle with the bug I’m fighting, but one more night and I should be completely good.
I do a final sweep of my place, return the keys, and walk to the taxi station, only to find it empty other than one empty car. I summon an Uber, just a few blocks away, and off I pop toward the next destination.
There’s a screen in front of my seat in the car, a tablet with a repeating series of slides about what to do if you’re attacked. Make a lot of noise, try to attract attention, what number to call after you’ve been attacked. Cycling through, screen after screen, all information about preventing an assault, then the process to go through after having been assaulted, given you are still alive.
And so it’s just a repeating series of slides in my head of being raped in London. That look, the strange cadence, that feeling I had about going to the back for a cigarette, that feeling that he has my stuff, my passport, all under lock and key.
Despair.
Fear.
Submission to the inevitable.
And the police station, the hours of describing and reliving, that wild righteous deeply disturbed look in the police officer’s eyes telling me about the arrest, encouraging me to press forward.
Breathe. You are safe in this place. Wait, no, this place is foreign. You’re in a car driven by someone you’ve never met going from a place you barely visited to a place you’ve never been. There is no real safety here, just low probability of danger. Then again, I thought it was unlikely to be raped by the receptionist in the lobby of a hotel. One star. Interesting history of building, very disappointed in the welcome. Make jokes. Divert your attention.
Breathe.
Inhale.
Exhale.
My vision starts to blur.
Tap tap tap. Tapping in an alternating pattern on either side of the body creates an alternating brain hemisphere activation. Right, left, right, left, right. Intellectualize. Distance yourself from the memory.
You forgot to breathe. Keep breathing. Keep tapping. Don’t pass out in this stranger’s car from a panic attack. Avoid the panic attack. What is 532 divided by 47? Go.
Oh it’s not working as well this time. Can’t smoke a cigarette in this stranger’s car. Imagine smoking a cigarette. Bring the cigarette between your lips, cover the tip from the wind, light the cigarette, breathe in through a tiny parting of your lips. Right, left, right, left.
And we arrive in La Ciotat. I thank the driver for the ride, and make sure to give him a big tip for not raping me. Yes, ludicrous. But also, I am very grateful to be here now, unviolated, albeit dissociated and a bit shaky. With everything going on inside my system, maybe we can let go of the judgment around tipping for a no-rape service. Just tip and move on.
Where is this apartment owner? I texted her ages ago. I need to get inside, lay down, rest, and cry. I can feel this thing inside me, darting back and forth, looking for an escape. It’s desperate. It’s desperation. It’s only been two minutes. Time isn’t working the same way right now. Just breathe. tap. breathe.
There she is, with a smile and a wave. Here’s this, here’s that. I swear I speak enough French to understand what she’s saying. Chances are I’ll remember it later. Just nod and smile and she’ll leave you be soon enough.
I can feel the cold gaining strength now, moving into my lungs. I lost focus during that drive, my body went into stressful memory, I had a very hard time getting out of it, I may still be in it, I’m pretty sure I’m still there, the stress opened the gate. My immune system wasn’t working on this invader when there was such a more threatening invader creeping in through memory. The owner of the apartment is taking so long. She’s so nice, and she’s taking so long.
But she does leave.
And the sickness sets in. Hold it off for a half hour. Get groceries. Prepare for the inevitable.
Back home, and it hits. The cold sinks into my entire system and I cry. I ache. I cry. I sleep.
I paint a little. Be productive. I can’t paint. I organize the trip with Larkin. I’m overwhelmed. I try to design new clothes. They look like shit. I post on Instagram and nobody cares. I try and fail. Fail fail fail. Failure. Liar. Manipulator. Brat. Spoiled, worthless.
Inutile.
And I cry. I go outside, I cry. I walk a bit. I cry. The sun is bright. I cry. A breeze hits. I cry.
A man compliments my tattoos. I say thank you. He then emphasizes he really likes the style. Fuck. He’s one of those guys. He turns and walks along with me, opposite the direction he had been going, telling me too much about himself, saying he’ll take me to the mountains. It’s calm there. I’ll like it there. I fucking know, bro. I’ve met you so many times before.
The panic rises. I’ve been here before. Balance on this tight rope. Grey rock. Balance. Neutral. Grey rock. Uninteresting. My cigarette went out. God I want to smoke it. Damn panic, you made me let my cigarette go out. No you can’t have my number. You can have my Instagram. Sure, take a picture. Goodbye. Walk. Fast, but not too fast. Walk. Where is that damn lighter? Light the cigarette. Walk fast, but not too fast. Is he following? Is anyone following? Tears start falling. Don’t wipe them away. Don’t do anything interesting. Stiff walk so nothing jiggles, but not so stiff they can see the panic.
Home. Rest. Cry.
And that’s how time proceeded. Crying at any stimulus. For days.
But wait. Reprieve. Finally. Walk to the sea. Just in time for sunset. Hurry home but don’t seem in a rush.
Rest. Cry.
Suddenly up, without even a hint of illness or sensitivity to stimuli. What time will the moon rise? The super blue moon, last one until 2037. It’s just under the horizon. Go.
I walk at a fast clip, determined steps, just a few blocks to the sea, the mother, the ocean, the salty womb waters of the earth.
There she is. Massive, red, orange—just massive, against the deep blue. Indigo, cobalt, raven’s wings, irisé… Where are we going, legs?
Into the sea. Propelled without thought into the sea. Standing. Toes in the sand, water just below the knees at the crest of gentle waves. There are people all around, but I just don’t care. There are people swimming, sitting, playing. And here is the moon, in all her fullness, just massive. Watch her turn a pale orange.
I glance down and an alarm goes off in my head. Remember those fish that live in the sand and have a stinger they can shoot into your foot? Well, that’s highly unlikely. It doesn’t matter how likely or unlikely it is, get out of the water now. Just listen and move. Heed your body, heed your intuition.
Sit on the cement wall, the sand is so fine and soft it’ll never come off your feet. Sit and watch the moon.
She’s off-white now and this group to the right is weird. Four adults to my right, two children playing soccer to my left. Their ball went toward the adults, and they kicked it almost to the street instead of the ten feet needed to return it to the children. The children are clearly upset now, and the adults are yelling at them cruelly, making fun of them having to go so far to retrieve the ball, laughing these awful, painful laughs. What must have happened in these lives that this is how they interact with children?
It’s time. Go home. Rest. Cry.
Spiral the next day into how worthless you are. Overwhelmed on a dream trip, you brat.
Walk it off. Cry. There is no walking it off. Home. Rest. Cry. Larkin sends a healing and the pressure lifts. I can move uncrushed by thought. Dear Larkin, what gorgeous magic you bring and embody.
PART TWO
And so here it is.
I finally wake up early enough to see the sunrise on the water. I have my bowl of coffee from home and a tranquil place to sit and watch the colors unfold. There’s a man on the beach with a metal detector, finding what seems mostly to be bottle caps, but he presses on with a very determined energy.
When the sky fills cerulean blue, I walk back to my ephemeral home, but a little past it to look into the grounds next door, the historical home of the inventors of cinema. On the ground, traversed in line by ants, a Death’s Head Moth who found its namesake. Such bright Tuscan Yellow, beautiful in certain contrast and context, and on the other side, an almost iridescent blue in the body. Blue and yellow, the most beautiful combination, streaked with black. The pattern of the skull, the reason for the monicker of mortality, in this case looks more like a gas mask, and I ask the corpse if I can take it home with me. The response is a yes, so I go home, retrieve a small box I had recently painted, and return to collect the moth.
What is all of this? The synchronicity is there, my comprehension is not. This is the first time I’ve come across the Death’s Head Moth, in all my years, in the wild instead of something cultivated by human hands.
Forget it. Maybe it just all is. Maybe it doesn’t have a larger meaning. But why, then, does it feel like I have these puzzle pieces in front of me without any rhyme or reason for their pattern or even existence in my field?
<><><>
So I’m messaging with my friend Jaime. I’ve gone about my day, and now it’s just the course of a normal conversation. Well, normal for us. You see, as it tends to happen in my life, a beautiful human came into my tattoo shop one day so we could work together, and it turns out we landed in each other’s lives for a bit of magic. She moved shortly after we met, and though we stayed in touch a bit here and there after having a pretty intense time together catalyzed by an ignorant neighbor I had at the time, recently we’ve been incredible supports for one another. We seem to be riding the same emotional wave in humanity, and we can openly discuss it all together, and I honestly don’t know where I would be without her right now.
And it suddenly makes sense.
Here’s this beautiful cicada in its moment of transformation. So visceral and beautiful, a delicate jewel of a creature unraveling. Both soft and vibrant, holding duality, emerging from this dry leaf exoskeleton into her full colors, her life with flight.
But this is also her most vulnerable point, this moment of formation, the unfurling of her wings, halted forever by the trauma of a vicious and brutal attack. Not malicious, just the nature of the wasp.
And here I am. Another transformation. I’ve felt something is coming, a grand gesture of sorts, a dance, some version of flight, my own wings. And in this vulnerable and beautiful unfurling, my body makes sure I stay safe. Rest, cry.
You can’t go out if you’re just crying.
Let yourself transform.
PART THREE
I chose not to set an alarm that night. I spoke with myself gently, “I would love to wake and see the sunrise, but only if you feel rested. If it’s right to see the sunrise, please wake in time to do so.”
<><><>
I look down at my hands, holding a pure white mouse. These pure white mice. Rats? Very large for them to be mice. I’m holding one by the tail. It will be sacrificed, barely a meal for the beast. This thing I must feed.
I don’t remember what it was, this beast. But as my feet touched the cold stone, everything around me dark and damp, save this mouse in my hand, almost glowing white now, brighter than the candles on the stone walls, I could sense the beast nearby, creeping into my perception, its hunger becoming my own.
(I can still see this mouse in the waking world.)
Fur so soft, gentle flutter of down, soft soft soft, and such a gentle warmth. And these black eyes, little black nose shifting this way and that.
As the beast’s angry demand grows more intense, a sickly air filling my senses, fear, so much fear, the mouse can sense it too. These pleading black eyes.
And now I have a mouse in each hand. And they bite. They want to be free.
But they are food for the beast.
I clutch at them, they squirm and bite, and I clutch more tightly. I feel the conflict burning inside me. I don’t want to sacrifice them. I want to take them to safety. I want to drop them and let them run. But this fear is gripping me tighter than I am gripping them now. And it burns brighter than the conflict. It sears.
Their little faces.
The heat from their little bodies.
Can I not save them? Must they truly be a sacrifice?
Clutching them so tight as they wriggle
they
panic
And I awake from the nightmare, clutching my own breast
Mouse to be sacrificed
Sacrificial rat
Adorable creature
Disgusting vermin
Trash
Barely a meal for the beast.
How many times have I sacrificed a part of my body to the beast that lusts after some aspect of me? There’s really no way to count it all out…
how many times have I succumbed to the inevitable, made the trade off, sacrificed a part of the physical in exchange for some element of survival?
<><><>
Outside the window it’s dark still. Check the time.
I have enough. I can see the sunrise
But my body aches.
My thoughts ache…
Do they want to carry me to the sea? Do they want rest?
Lay down further, press into the bed, cocoon with the sheet
A voice within whispers with fortitude. Get up. Coffee.
There’s still time.
Lift my body, relieve my bladder, brush my teeth, make the coffee.
I check the time, surely I’m running behind, and somehow the clock reads the same time as before. Did I misread the clock earlier? I have time.
I walk under street lamps and tree tops, bark shedding in sheets, leaving a patchwork pattern on trunks, and art materials below. I’m walking along the Allée Lumière, the path of light, toward the sea. There is a glow birthing itself over the horizon, and I am drawn to walk to the steps under a sign reading Plage Lumière, Light Beach, Beach of Light. I sit first, on the concrete ledge near the steps, enjoying my coffee and a cigarette. A man comes to collect the trash and nods with satisfaction, noting I brought coffee from home.
As the sun’s light paints the sky in pinks and oranges, reds and purples, I decide to walk to the water, down the steps, rather than through the side entrance I have used before. And with my first step, déjà vu holds my foot to the cement. I have seen these steps before, in moon journeys with my glorious Reiki teacher. It always confused me in journey, I’ve walked down these steps two or three times in the liminal space. The first step is just finding my footing on concrete, then three steps down, a rough edge of concrete exposed on that fourth pass, then onto sand so soft it’s incomprehensible.
This is the second time now I’ve journeyed to a physical place before arriving there, at least the second time that I’m fully aware of. I’ve had dreams play out in real life, in the most reality-bending of ways, but I now feel more familiar in this tiny experience of non-linear time. I’m finding ways to maintain solid footing while walking consciously between realms.
I walk into the water again, immediately my focus moves from the sunrise to my feet and I find a blood-red rock, like a clot, a barely conceived fetus. I pick it up and ask if it’s meant for me. Yes.
I walk to the large rocks, sit down, long green dress dancing in the ocean breeze, and set about attuning the rock and weaving thread around it to hang as a necklace. It hangs down to my lower womb space, and as I walk it serves as a pendulum, showing a visual of my level of comfort, which I am so practiced in ignoring.
Hours of weaving thread, in the sun, dancing fabric all around.
Message received.
<><><>
“What is it you fear?” She asked, invited. Dear Jaime, how precious it is to know you.
The obvious answer is death. Pain. Torture.
But that’s not it.
The fear that chokes, emprisons, drowns, crushes…
that’s the fear of how my loved ones would feel if my death were brutal, how they would feel if they thought my death were avoidable, if I did something dangerous and stupid.
This is my life, and it will be my death. It belongs to me alone. My death belongs to me, only I can claim it when it’s due.
I let my animals live the way they wish knowing someday death will come. Let them truly enjoy the life they have.
Now I may, must, show myself that same grace.
Whenever my time comes, know that I lived well, fully, passionately, and wholly alive.
No longer will any piece of me be sacrificed to the beast.
I am strong. I am beautiful.
I am alive.
Even in death, I am alive.
